


The Peculiarities of Time Travel

by mmmdraco



Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-18
Updated: 2012-09-18
Packaged: 2017-11-14 12:15:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/515136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mmmdraco/pseuds/mmmdraco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ko Yeong-ha is a genius who invents time travel which totally is not what he expects it to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Peculiarities of Time Travel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stillskies](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stillskies/gifts), [aiwritingfic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aiwritingfic/gifts).



> Um, yeah... Not even really certain what made this thing happen except that my brain goes weird places quite often. But, dedicated anyway to my lovely Hikago Team Deathmatch teammates. I had something else in mind to write for you guys (and still will if I can manage it!) but this will do until then!

Most people knew that Ko was a genius. What they failed to realize was just how much of a genius he _actually_ was, because it wasn't just go and it wasn't just a slightly more than rudimentary understanding of the world and how it functioned. It was, instead, that he had conquered several fields of study just out of curiosity and now he had invented time travel just for the heck of it. 

Going into the future seemed like the thing to do, at first. But just as the time machine that he built was starting to dematerialize, he switcheed over to the past because, really, that would be much easier to play with since he already knew some of the things that happened. It was this that he blamed when he overshot his landing and somehow ended up with his time machine fused with a bathroom stall. 

Growling in frustration, he threw open the door to the stall/time machine and looked in the mirror over the sink and screamed loudly. He rushed over and touched his face and was horrified to find out that he no longer looked gorgeous and suave like he'd become accustomed, but instead was back to looking like his gangly pre-teen self before he'd grown his hair out and gotten corrective eye surgery and grown significantly for several years in a row. He was back to looking a bit like an actual shrimp, but this wasn't a place that he recognized.

Heading out of the bathroom, he began to see signs written in Japanese and was suddenly glad that he'd made a study of languages at one point. He wasn't fluent in anything but Korean, but he was close enough to it in Japanese, Chinese (both Mandarin and Cantonese) as well as English. It became clear to him that he was, for some reason, in the middle of the Nihon Ki-in. He saw Shindou Hikaru walking down the hallway (those bangs were hard to miss, even if it was obvious that the boy was several years younger than when Ko had first met him) and he followed him.

And, somehow, it became obvious that time travel was a much stranger thing than Ko had realized while inventing it. Because rather than everyone looking at him like he was a strange outsider, they mostly ignored him, but then another boy bumped into him and apologized, but called him "Ochi".

It took breaking into the records room at the Ki-in (and then realizing that the ID card in his wallet had changed accordingly) for Ko Yeong-ha to realize that in this time and place, he was Ochi Kousuke, a Japanese insei, and he lived with his grandfather in Tokyo. Weird. He also looked something like three years younger than what Ko had at this point in time. He wanted to head back home to Korea in his own time, but since he was out of place in time and space anyway, he figured he might as well look in on the insei class. Shindou would at least be fun to mess with.

And Ko got to play against Shindou and it was the most miserable game ever. Shindou was so bad that he dragged Ko's gameplay down (wait, that wasn't also a side effect of the time travel, was it?). How, then, had the boy grown enough as a player in the interim years before nearly defeating Ko at the Hokuto Cup? This was something worth investigating for a few days.

But days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months and months to years because as he "investigated", he grew more and more unsettled about his go. The thing he loved about it and had _always _loved about it was the challenge. When you don't pursue rocket science because it's too easy, you have to find something that keeps your brain from getting too bored. For Ko, that was go. Yet, for all that he had decried Japanese go as being weak, he was having a hard time here. Certainly he no longer had the beautiful face and body that disconcerted his opponents, but he'd managed well enough when he looked like this in Korea.__

__So, something in the time travel, then. Perhaps some metaphysical mechanism to prevent him from standing out too much and thereby causing an overwhelming flux in the time stream? But, damn, it hurt to lose against inferior players. After each loss he got the urge to travel back to his own time again and sometimes even went so far as to punch in the time coordinates in his time machine (awkward when it was still a bathroom stall, though no one else seemed able to see the controls), but he couldn't seem to make that final step to activate the last mechanism._ _

__He pushed his way through until he started winning consistently again around the time of the pro exam, but Shindou beat him soundly (and he was _much_ better now somehow) and then that Isumi kid. But he still turned pro, so that was good, even if he couldn't quite appreciate his paradoxical grandfather throwing him a party when, several years after meeting the guy, they still seemed to know nothing about each other. _ _

__Ko was certain that he was going to get the urge to go back any day now. But the challenge was fun again. Each game was like operating under an additional handicap and he was proud of some of those games he played despite them not shining with the same glimmer of brilliance that his "Ko Yeong-ha" games did._ _

__And then, the preparations for the Hokuto Cup. Looking around at the people in the room, Ko saw Shindou Hikaru and the other guy who ended up on Japan's team, though the name escaped him for the moment. Now he wondered if it were possible to change history. Because, would it be possible to play himself in the Hokuto Cup? Ko versus Kousuke. His Ko self would have no idea beyond thinking that the brat across from him looked like he used to, but his Ochi self would know but could deal._ _

__So Ko played as Ochi and he won the right to be part of the competition, but there were complaints. Because Shindou's opponent, that Yashiro kid, had played an amazing game. A game much better than the one Ko had played against his opponent. And without thinking, Ko offered to play Yashiro to prove his dominance._ _

__And then he'd lost._ _

__And, really, it was kind of devastating. Because it was one of the first games he'd playing in Japan where he felt like it wasn't based on a formula, and he couldn't do enough to shut it down no matter how he tried. He wondered if time, despite being non-linear, had formulaic tangentials that helped to keep certain key events from being overwritten. He also wondered if it were possible to fall in love with someone outside of time and just because of their pretty face and their go._ _

__It was time. Finally. He had to break into the Ki-in in the middle of the night (managed easily enough) to get back to his time machine. He plugged in the coordinates carefully and put his finger on the start button and closed his eyes. He pressed the button solidly and one world faded away as another world formed around him._ _

__He ran to the mirror again. Tall, gorgeous, perfect vision... He was Ko again. It was time for things to get back to normal._ _

__Only, they didn't. Because it took months to stop lapsing into Japanese and to stop pushing his non-existent glasses up his nose and to stop hitting his head on things that his Ochi self wouldn't have had to worry about. It was enough that his parents began to worry about him, though it was also difficult to give himself back over to their care when he'd basically taken care of himself rather than submit to the will of that supposed grandfather who was so blandly neutral that Ko had forgotten about him several time even while living in his house._ _

__But his go was better again. And it felt good._ _

__Suddenly, it was time for the Hokuto Cup again. Time flew by now in a way that made Ko look at the remnants of his time machine sketchily every few weeks. Everyone had the same team this year except China, and Ko looked forward to seeing how much Shindou Hikaru had progressed this time. And to see whether he would actually get to play Touya Akira this year. And to see Yashiro Kiyoharu again and see if there could be something there this time now that he knew to acknowledge the man._ _

__He'd feigned ignorance of Japanese in the previous year because it had seemed fun, but there didn't seem to be a point to it now. So he translated for himself and his teammates and enjoyed the looks on everyone's faces. Except that when he translated his welcome speech to Japanese, both Shindou and Yashiro gave him funny looks._ _

__Ko was first board again. That wasn't surprising. But Japan switched things up again and put Yashiro at first board for his game. As they sat down to play, Yashiro shook his head. "You know, it's weird. When you speak in Japanese, you really remind me so much of a boy I met once."_ _

__"Oh?" Ko feigned indifference, but clutched all the harder at the stones he drew out to count._ _

__"Yeah. He's younger than you, but there were similar elements. I can't remember his name now, though."_ _

__Ko let out a breath he hadn't known he'd been holding. "So remember mine."_ _

__Yashiro laughed. "I already do. Ko Yeong-ha. Do you know the things I had to promise so that I could play first board today?"_ _

__"I hope you won't regret having to do those things even after you lose."_ _

__With a laugh, Yashiro fished out his handful of stones. "Let's play a good game. Win or lose, it's the game that's important, right?"_ _

__"There's no merit in losing." Ko swept up his stones and switched the bowls so that Yashiro had black. Neither of them were paying any attention to the people around them._ _

__"There can be," Yashiro said as he placed his lid carefully next to the bowl of stones. "But only someone who wins a lot wouldn't realize that."_ _

__"If you lose a lot, you shouldn't be playing first board."_ _

__"But what if I win?" Yashiro said brazenly._ _

__Ko shook his head. "Then I'll take you on a date."_ _

__Yashiro, as the game was signalled to start, placed his first stone: tengen. "You don't need an excuse to ask me out, you know."_ _

__"So I'll take you out anyway." Ko said as he played his move._ _

__"Ochi."_ _

__Ko's eyebrows raised. "What?!"_ _

__"The boy that you reminded me of. It's funny, it's really your Japanese accent more than anything that reminds me of him. I only really played him that one time, but I remember it so well."_ _

__"Did he make such an impression?" Ko trailed a fingers through the stones in his bowl._ _

__Yashiro took a moment to contemplate the pattern of stones before playing his next one. "Well, not on everyone. But I kind of liked him, I think. I wish I could have gotten to know him better."_ _

__Ko played his next hand thoughtfully. "You barely knew him."_ _

__"Some people, you barely have to know to remember," Yashiro said as he looked pointedly at Ko. "I didn't forget _you_."_ _

__And that's when it hit Ko. His time travel had done what it could to lead him to this man for some reason. It had disguised him and his go and now he was poised on the edge of getting the one thing that even a genius couldn't always figure out on his own: love. "If you could go back in time and do one thing, what would it be?" Ko asked._ _

__Yashiro smiled openly. "I would play go."_ _


End file.
